This year, the U.S. Wakefield Team was selected from the top 10 competitors from the iron-sights portion of the U.S. National Smallbore Rifle Metric Championships held at Ben Avery Shooting Range in Phoenix, Arizona, from March 15-16, 2025.
The Wakefield Team Match was shot the afternoon of Sunday, March 16, after the scope portion of the championships. Saturday was just too windy to shoot another 60-shot course of fire. The U.S. team captain was Frank Garbouchian and team coach was Michele Medige. Official scorer was Peter Church.
The Wakefield Match is an International Postal Prone Match sponsored and organized by the National Smallbore Rifle Association of Great Britain and was first started in its current form in 1991.
A postal match is a match where competitors qualify at a national championship in their own country and the team then competes in their own country. The team scores are collected, compared and a winner announced. An International Match is a competition between two or more countries.
The Wakefield Team Match is named after Lord Charles Cheers Wakefield, Baron Wakefield of Hythe, a member of the SMRC’s governing council, who gifted the trophy to the Society of Miniature Rifle Clubs (SMRC), now the National Smallbore Rifle Association of Great Britain (NSRA), in 1933.
Team scores are compiled by Great Britain, who announces the winner after all competing countries have finished shooting, which generally occurs in the fall. The course of fire is the English Match, which is a total of 60 shots per competitor on current ISSF (International Shooting Sports Federation) targets and is fired in three stages of 20 shots for record. The team consists of 10 firing members, team captain and team coach. Great Britain shoots their Wakefield Team Match as individuals on their home range, with witnesses, during a week in September. The United States shoots their match as a team during the National Metric Championships.
This year, it was a warm, sunny and breezy afternoon during the firing of the match. Several shooters had wind coaches and their wind calls could be heard throughout the course of fire.
At the end of three stages, Deena McDorman boasted the best finish with an impressive 594-33X. McDorman also won the National Metric Championship with 2351-131X (total possible score 2400).
Second highest on the Wakefield Team Match was Bill Rodolph, in his first appearance on the U.S. Team, with 586-25X. This also marked the first appearance at the Wakefield Team Match for Kerry Spurgin and Ron Zerr.
The author of this article—Virginia McLemore—is the only U.S. competitor who has been on every Wakefield Team Match placement since 2012. McLemore was also the runner-up in this year’s National Metric Championships with a score of 2347-114X.
Other members of the Wakefield Team Match roster are Mark del Cotto, Dan Erpenbach, Evan Owen, William Meek (former U.S. Olympian) and Wesley Shumaker. Each team member received a Wakefield patch and copy of the score sheet. Now, we wait for Great Britain to fire their Wakefield Team Match in the fall.
2025 NRA U.S. National Smallbore Rifle Metric Championship Leaderboard
SLING GRAND AGGREGATE
- Winner: Deena McDorman, 2351-131X
- 2nd: Virginia T. McLemore, 2347-114X
- 3rd: Dan Erpenbach, 2340-106X
F-CLASS GRAND AGGREGATE
- Winner: Sam Pagliari, 2397-188X
- 2nd: Jim Murphy, 2385-164X
- 3rd: Larry Bartholome, 2384-174X
The 2025 NRA National Smallbore Rifle Championship will be held at the Cardinal Shooting Center in Marengo, Ohio, from July 20-29. The match program is now available to view on the NRA Competitive Shooting website, as well as at the Cardinal Center website. You can learn more at this link.
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